Argentina All-Mountain Adventure

The Rocky Mountain crew–Wade Simmons, Andreas Hestler, Geoff Gulevich and Thomas Vanderham–went looking for the ultimate all-mountain adventure and wound up in Argentina. Huge climbs, huge descents, beers, high fives, sunshine…. All the good stuff.

Check out the three videos and photo gallery below, and stay tuned for more.

EPISODE #1
When we travel together with our bikes and gear, we use the term “Shock and Awe” for the airport check-in experience. Seven guys with seven overweight bikes and gear bags is a sight to behold and Air Canada’s check-in staff have come to know us well. Our trip down to Buenos Aires was smooth and we had a fun (too fun) night there before heading to Bariloche the next day. There, we met our amazing guides and we had enough time to get a quick rip in to work the cobwebs out from two days of travel. **Warning – there is almost no riding in this video, but it's worth the watch!**

EPISODE #2
Our first day of riding had us giddy – we knew we’d stumbled upon something big. It was so gratifying to come so far and be rewarded with such great riding and awe-inspiring terrain. The riding above the Catedral bike park had us feeling like we were riding on Mars with jagged red rock spires in the distance. The next day we climbed for two hours up to a refugio, which is a mountaineer’s hut staffed year-round. With epic views of the lake and the Andes, we descended into what seemed like a natural bobsled track full of little drops and rock gardens. Another all-time day and further confirmation we hit the motherlode.

EPISODE #3
When we were above Catedral, we could see a snowcapped Volcano in the distance. We were told that soon we’d be riding almost all the way up the it in coming days. A three hour climb through rainforest, past huge waterfalls and incredible vistas put us into a glacial moonscape. We climbed and hiked in dense fog over volcanic rock up to over 7000 feet. Out of nowhere a refugio appeared, a welcome sight for a bunch of cold and tired guys. After a late night and lot of red wine, we were greeted by a bluebird morning and the realization we were on the edge of a massive glacier and in the middle of a mountain bike playground.